In nearly three thousand BBC broadcasts over fifty-eight years, Alistair
Cooke reported on America, illuminating our country for a global
audience. He was one of the most widely read and widely heard
chroniclers of America--the Twentieth Century's de Tocqueville. Cooke
died in 2004, but shortly before he passed away a long-forgotten
manuscript resurfaced in a closet in his New York apartment. It was a
travelogue of America during the early days of World War II that had sat
there for sixty years. Published to stellar reviews in 2006, though
"somewhat past deadline," Cooke's The American Home Front is a
"valentine to his adopted country by someone who loved it as well as
anyone and knew it better than most" (The Plain Dealer [Cleveland]).
It is a unique artifact and a historical gem, "an unexpected and welcome
discover in a time capsule." (Washington Post) A portrait frozen in
time, the book offers a charming look at the war through small towns,
big cities, and the American landscape as they once were. The American
Home Front is also a brilliant piece of reportage, a historical gem
that "affirms Cooke's enduring place as a great twentieth-century
reporter" (American Heritage).